


The Ingenuity of a Madman

by NevillesGran



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Mad Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: After the slaughter of his family, Percy, somewhat to his own surprise makes a new one.Mostly in the laboratory. With mad science.(Or: theGirl GeniusAU we all knew needed to exist.)





	The Ingenuity of a Madman

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been passive-aggressively called out by a fictional goddess before, re: hoarding stories in my own head about certain characters _clearly_ being sparks.

It was a common story. The de Rolos were an old family, rulers of a city-state in the far north, a fruitful valley kept safe by a mountain range on one side and a great forest on the other. They were one of the Fifty, rich in wealth and history and a bloodline unsullied by “sorcery.”

Ripe and easy pickings, in short, for a madboy—a madgirl, actually; a madwoman—come marauding with her horde of walking corpses and revivified monsters.

She even used stealth and deception, rare for a spark. It was a foolproof plan, and the entire family—or so it seemed—was slaughtered in one night, their lands and castle taken.

But the spark has a way of going where it’s unwanted, and no plan is _entirely_ foolproof. Someone, for instance, could have noticed that the second son of the house had spent his entire life to date reading tomes of science, not to mention doodling chemical formulae and systems of levers, and building a _suspicious_ number of clockwork knickknacks. Someone really should have noticed that.

(Someone did, actually. But she was too busy finding out how he ticked, metaphorically and literally speaking, to mention it to her employers. Then it turned out that the youngest daughter had survived as well, and that she had a knack for lockpicks…)

The girl fell, the boy ran on…and came back not long after, armed to the teeth and above. Death rays, explosives, even larger death rays…no one could say he didn’t have applicable skills. But the madwoman had a considerable lick of common sense for a spark, so, rather than fight to the death, she took her revivified husband and a handful of favored minions and fled, leaving the new young lord to his own devices.

And to little _but_ his own devices. The second son and third child, he had never expected to rule a city. He didn’t want to. He’d expected to hang around, maybe go abroad to university, then come home and settle in to build knickknacks, and maybe some central heating. Advise his older brother if absolutely necessary. He wanted to be listened to, to show people what science could do—but _ruling?_ Heck, _social interaction?_

He didn’t want to stay, but he couldn’t leave, not with his city potentially vulnerable. Never again, he vowed, would Whitestone fall. But he didn’t know what was worse: the castle’s empty hallways, cold stone and ghosts, or the idea that people not his family might walk them again.

. . .

Waking up wasn’t very complicated, but it was exciting. She didn’t think she’d ever done it before, and new things were always interesting. And a little scary. Nerves hit her instantly. What if she was doing something wrong? What was she supposed to be doing anyway?

The ceiling was carved white stone, a pattern of vines that she liked instantly. There was a skylight in the center, sending sunlight down to tickle warmly at her toes. Between her and the skylight was a lightning generator, pointing her way, electricity still crackling around the tip. She was on a table, padded but not very well, and her wrists and ankles seemed to be strapped down.

She rolled over as much as she could, and saw…Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III.

“That’s an awful lot of name.” She frowned. “How do I know it?”

His head, previously buried in his hands, sprang up. His body followed. “You’re awake! Oh- you’re _alive!_ Oh my god, it _worked!_ ”

“Yeah!”

He was so pleased with himself, it was had to not get caught up in the enthusiasm. His eyes were red-rimmed and too-bright, his white hair sticking up every which way and his waistcoat utterly rumpled under his labcoat. But his grin was real, his voice literally vibrating with excitement.

She still had some questions. “Um, do _I_ have a name? Is it as long as yours? Why do I know yours—why do I even think it’s long? How do I know what a name is, or a lightning generator, or…”

Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III’s face fell, and she trailed off.

“Fuck,” he said, and rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t even—”

“I’m sorry.” She cringed. “I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, god, no! I’m the one who didn’t give you a _name_.” He scrambled forward and started undoing the straps on her wrists. “I don’t even know what I was thinking—I’m not usually interested in biotics. No offense.”

“None…taken?” She sat up, narrowly avoiding bumping Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III in the head, and looked around.

It looked like a normal laboratory, though she wasn’t sure where she got the basis of comparison. The pale stone walls were covered in tools, mostly wrenches, hammers, and the like, but there was a section for knives and scalpels as well, and beside her table, a whole corner was taken up by a human-sized glass chamber. It looked like it hadn’t been washed since it was last full of blue liquid. The rest of the room was tool benches, or workbenches, or drafting tables—it wasn’t clear what was what. Only the walls were organized. Through a door in the opposite wall, she could see a forge.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the glass of the blue-tinted chamber. Her hair was bright orange and her skin a dusty brown, like healthy oak bark. It matched the twin branches twisting up from behind her ears. Experimentally, she tries to move them both. The pointed ear tips wiggled, but the branches only moved when she shook her head, even though they were thin.

Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III was in the reflection, too, pursing his lips in an examinatory manner.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked.

“Whitestone Castle,” she answered immediately, and then frowned. “Where is…”

He circled the table, eying her from every side. “I put you together from the refleshified remains of one of my ancestors—several remains of my ancestors, actually, plus a cutting of the Sun Tree—”

“The great tree of Whitestone,” she interjected, remembering from nowhere. “The great sorcerer Pelor grew it there!”

“Yes, yes. Though I’m not sure why I—anyway, it seems you’ve retained somatic memory, generic knowledge such as speech and movement as well as some more specific details that would be known to every person from whom I drew parts—including, I wonder, the Tree? It is supposed to…” His words started to shiver again as he smacked his forehead. “Of course, _that’s_ why you didn’t wake up—you needed _solar_ radiation, not just the electrical charge. I’ll have to factor that into a dietary plan—we’ll need to do some serious experimenting on your digestive, endocrine, and photosynthetic systems first, as well as nervous and respiratory. And I’ll _need_ measurements of your galvanic essence in various meterological conditions, ideally _cross-referenced_ …”

She tuned him out, just a little bit, to bend down and uncuff her ankles from the table. She paused to see if he would stop her, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was definitely a Spark—well, obviously. She knew/remembered more the longer she thought about things. Normal people didn’t blend the genes of trees and partially reanimated corpses. But…

He was certainly fervent, as he slipped back into a madness fugue, but he didn’t seem happy. Didn’t really seem like he was having fun with it. Weren’t madboys supposed to laugh? Maniacally? Hers just looked…tired.

“Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III?”

He looked at her like a person instead of an experiment before she got halfway through. Though his eyes were still bright with spark.

“Lord, _that’s_ a mouthful. Just call me Percy.”

“Percy,” she repeated gratefully. That was much easier.

“Um…why? Did you put me together?”

He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Then open. “I…”

She waited patiently. He repeated the mouth open-close-open, took off his glasses and cleaned them, and finally managed, “I suppose I owe you honesty. I was rather deep in a fugue at the time, but…I’ve been somewhat lonely.” He took a deep breath. “And I could use an extra hand in the lab sometime—”

She was already off the table and hugging his skinny frame. They were almost the same height, if you discounted her branches. It was only a moment before Percy leaned into it and wrapped his arms just as hard around her. She was grateful, because the awareness of what had happened to the rest of the de Rolos hit her like another lightning bolt.

“I can do that,” she whispered fiercely. “I can be here.”

“Thank you.” Percy’s voice was muffled against her shoulder. She squeezed him a little tighter.

“I still want a name, though.”

“I have spare.” She could hear his smile. It was more relaxed now. It sounded nice. “Do you have a preference?”

“Klossowski,” she said promptly, and then rolled it around on her tongue. “K-k-klossowwwsk-kiii—I like the _kh_ most.”

“We can work with that.”

~ { Ω } ~

“This is the _last straw_ , Vax’ildan. You are _not_ to steal from the people of _my_ city. And Vex’ahlia! You have _some_ sense. Yet you _indulge_ him.”

-

It hadn’t started like this. The twins had woken up as innocent and curious as Keyleth—well, a little more paranoid. They weren’t built from refleshified bones like she was, nor even genetic samples from the Sun Tree. Keyleth found she could speak with it (old legends come to life, very exciting and scientifically fascinating!) and apparently, the Tree didn’t like being clipped.

Fortunately, on the day Percy was looking for a fresh corpse for his new experiment, a young man had just been hanged for stealing from the quarry. He could have used a live sample, but a corpse did remove some potential complications. Plus, it was the first thing he saw.

So, with the source more recent, more singular, and more human, the twins retained far more memories from their previous life than Keyleth’s mild collage. A fascinating alternative source of study, really…

-

“The hell do you mean, ‘my’ city? You just stay cooped up in this damn castle every day!” Vax’s gesture took in not just the foyer in which they were arguing, but the entire structure, 900 years of noble history preserved and immortalized in pristine whitestone.

“And I just took a fucking biscuit!”

-

It was, however, quickly a problem. “Vex” and “Vax”—he’d remembered to name them this time, but he’d still been in the Madness Place—were used to being commoners, and obstreperous, delinquent ones at that. They simply didn’t acclimate well to life as minions, even though Percy provided _every_ amenity they could have asked for. Certainly more than their former life had.

-

“The problem is not your thievery, the problem is your _absolute_ _disregard_ for _consequences_. _And_ the fact that you were supposed to be _here_ , cleaning out the flue!”

-

Percy blamed himself, of course. He was the one who fumbled the DNA, clipping the 23rd as well as the 18th. It was supposed to be an idle experiment to determine the difference between ATATTGCCGCG and ATTATGCCGCG in the 32nd alleles of the 18th chromosome. But then he’d left Sample 1 too close to the Mercurial Desynchronizer and not noticed until it was too late that the sex chromosome had been changed as well. So the entire experiment was thrown off.

Perhaps he should have thought through the fact that he would end up with two new humans—mostly humans—even if the experiment had gone as planned. But that was what the Spark was _for:_ enabling scientific exploration regardless of any petty hang-ups like questions of responsibility or moral relativity.

He had adapted. Percy wasn’t _completely_ absentminded in a fugue—he really did need someone agile to perform routine maintenance on the Chimney (the Cavernous Heat-Incapsulation and Metalloid-Networking Engine, Yay!) Anything mechanical he installed was either too stupid to do all the requisite tasks, or required too many small parts that didn’t hold up to the Chimney’s ambient temperature. The sentient, organic-bodied twins could still solve that problem, even if his control for ATAT vs. ATTA was lost completely.

-

“Clean out your own damn flue! Or, better, take the brush and shove it up your—”

“Brother, would you calm your tits!”

-

He continued observing the differences, of course. Never pass up an opportunity for scientific observation.

Vax’ildan was the real troublemaker—Percy hypothesized that it was because he was the closest to the original subject, and so retained the most in nature. And no wonder the originator had ended up hanging at the end of Main Street, because that nature was mercurial at best, and dark and lawless at worst. Sometimes he would find a task, or even deign to be assigned one, and fling himself into it with abandon until it was done or he was too exhausted to continue. More often, he would bristle at the very reference to responsibilities, and not just sneak around them but actively walk away in the middle of the conversation, often with… _incredibly_ rude gestures, which he _must_ have retained in somatic memory because he certainly hadn’t learned them in Percy’s castle.

Vex’ahlia consistently had a greater drive to impress and fit in, with some nebulous group that she _generally_ seemed to regard as including Percy. She was far more likely to do the bare minimum of her chores and then run off to the woods, but at least she did the chores. And when she wasn’t dashing around outside like a wild animal, she comported herself with a grace appropriate to a construct of an ancient, noble house. Overall, Percy was much more satisfied with Sample 1, error though she had been.

-

Vex stepped up beside her brother, her nails digging into his arm.

“What Vax is trying to say,” she told Percy with a bright, sharp smile, “is that you are a flaming fucking hypocrite, and if you want help doing your job, keeping your horrible lab cleaned or your city safe, you should consider asking for help. And maybe even—” her nails drew furrows in Vax’s arm—“saying ‘ _thank you’_ for once in your life, you pompous, cowardly jackass!”

Percy’s hand flicked to the death ray at his hip.

“Stop it!”

Keyleth looked as surprised as the others that she had shouted, but she managed to speak through the hands clapped over her mouth.

“Can’t we all just…be nice?” She blushed furiously.

Percy very deliberately raised his hand from his hip. He pulled off his glasses and wiped them on the handkerchief in his pocket, and noted to himself that he really ought to have the cloth cleaned, soon. He did his best to keep his voice and hands steady, and the madness at bay.

“Quite right,” he said to Keyleth. Then he turned back to the twins and added coldly, “Be that as it may, until further notice, neither of you will leave the castle again without my _express_ permission.”

“That’s bullshit—”

“Who the fuck is going to stop us?”

“I am your _creator_ , and you _will_ _obey me!_ ”

It was one of those pristine moments when everything but Percy’s mind froze perfectly still.

Normally, when his thoughts raced ahead at the relative speed of light like this, it was _resplendent_ . He remembered the first time fondly, despite having been near dead from loss at the time—loss of blood, of breath, of body heat; of home and family and everything that was worth anything. He’d been watching the popping flames at a campfire to which some fishermen had dragged his near-corpse, and suddenly, between one crackle and the next, everything wasn’t dull and empty and dead. Everything made _sense_.

It had never again been as strong as that first time. There had been a moment of crystalline clarity as he retook Whitestone, laughing as the Castle’s east wing burned around him. As Sylas Briarwood grabbed his wife’s arm to pull her away from the flames and their minions, dead and not, kept firing. But their bullets and death beams were frozen in midair, and would never hit him anyway because he had _purpose_. He had settled Bad News onto his shoulder, the particle engine roaring to life at his touch—

Maybe, his racing thoughts reasoned with dry irony, the triumph of that moment and the subsequent failure of his vengeful mission would be mirrored here, now _triumph_ where _failure_ seemed inevitable. Stupid, _stupid_ Percival. Foolish. _Sloppy_ . Everyone knew that line never worked, that it only ever had the opposite of the intended result. The only way to salvage _this_ situation would be to invent some sort of device that could catch the sound waves before they reached from his mouth to the twins’ ears, and ideally Keyleth’s as well. With her antler-branches and her eyes wide, her hands shaking over her mouth, she looked like a deer in the path of a cart. He hoped her respiratory system wasn’t shorting out again. Or something in the ears themselves to stop them from accepting anything that was really, really _stupid_ to have said—in the points; they were mostly just aesthetic at the moment. Keyleth had developed them naturally and it was so cute when she wiggled them, he’d made sure Vex and Vax had them, too. There was room there for some sort of fast-acting receiver and blocker, designed to react to tone of voice, maybe—the intelligence required to parse language would take up far too much room. But there was no way he could invent it, build it, and install it in the scant second he had, maybe less. Vex’s eyes were already narrowing, Vax twisting like he’d been hit—

Reality caught up with Percy’s brain, with a yelp of pain and a biting crunch of glass as Vax’s fist crashed into his face. His glasses shattered on contact and his eyes snapped reflexively shut. When the shouting faded and he’d brushed enough of the shards of glass from his face to feel safe, Keyleth was leaning out the front door, every line of her frame screaming with nerves, and Vex and Vax had vanished.

Percy doubted they’d come back. What sane person would want to?

~ { Ω } ~

Lizard-based humanoids, it turned out, could not long endure Whitestone’s winters. It had been a foolhardy idea in the first place. When Tiberius’s pulse stopped altogether, Percy turned around and buried himself in a new project. To build someone hardy, and self-warming, and above all useful in a medical laboratory. More useful than he was, for certain.

~ { Ω } ~

Pike made sure to balance the eggs carefully, perched as they were atop half a dozen other packages, all books. It might have been better to make two trips, or have to people to help carry, but Keyleth was busy with the garden and Percy was in one of his moods (was in his usual mood) where he didn’t want anyone coming to the Castle who didn’t already live there. And he certainly wasn’t going to come fetch his own mail, even though he’d ordered the books specially from Paris. Pike thought he was probably working on the Castle-to-city zipline again, which was…kind of the same thing, goal-wise. It just broke every time there was rain (in Northern Europa.)

Pike didn’t mind. It was a nice walk. She was small, but she could carry some books and a carton of eggs just fine.

She didn’t even drop them when the cart raced past her, hurtling down into the valley. Not until she heard the shout, the crash, and the child’s scream.

Pike wasn’t even sure what happened to the eggs and the books; she was down the road so fast without them.

It was bad. The cart—filled, though no longer, with wine barrels—was half-splintered against the wall of the very post office Pike had just left. People were rushing to help, the air full of shouts, but only one woman was there already. She knelt by what used to be the front of the wagon, prying furiously at the remains of the drivers’ seat. One massive, jagged splinter was plunged into the abdomen of a young boy, little more than a toddler, who stared vacantly up at the sky. Blood pooled from the back of his head as well as his side. It was nearly indistinguishable from the dark red wine.

Pike crouched beside them and leant her shoulder to the effort. The shattered seat had most of the remaining weight of the cart on top of it, but Pike was hardier than she looked, and the young mother had the supernatural strength that terror gives.

“No, no, no,” the woman murmured, gathering her son into her arms. “Evan, no, no. Look at me. Evan, sweetheart. Look– look at me—”

“I– ” Pike’s heart leapt in her chest. She cleared her throat, pushing it back down. “Ma’am, is his head cracked? His skull?”

“Why?” the woman demanded through her tears. “He is– he is not breathing—”

“I can fix that,” said Pike. She dropped to her knees beside them. “I can—that’s a clean wound, from the wood, and if his skull’s not cracked bad and his spine is still in place and everything, he just died from some blood loss and shock. I can _fix that_.”

The woman looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time—though still with only half a mind, her son so unmoving in her arms. Pike knew what she saw: a woman seemingly her own age, but with white hair and little more height than a half-grown girl. Pike’s ears were pointed and her eyes so bright blue they almost glowed, especially now as she reached for the energy in the air. It was always there.

“You’re Lord Percival’s new construct.” Suspicion flickered across the young mother’s face, followed by desperation. She pushed her son into Pike’s arms. “Do it. Do it now. Cast your spells, or whatever hellish thing you must do. Do you need blood? I have blood.”

Pike put out a hand to stop her from rolling up her sleeve. “No—well, yes, but I don’t know if yours– Mine will do. It has properties.”

Around them was clamoring, the rest of the city come to see the accident. One voice was particularly loud with apologies, and other voices shouting it angrily down—the cart-owner and his detractors, Pike assumed.

She didn’t let them overwhelm her. It was easy—she felt halfway to lightheadedness-from-blood-loss herself. No, that was adrenaline? Yes. Pull it _together_ , Pike. Focus on the patient. Feel the electricity in the air, ions free for the taking. She could do this. She’d never done it before on a real person, not a dummy, but she could do this.

Pike closed her eyes and looked out, reaching for the ever-present ambient energy of electrons racing through the air. Some people bragged they had a “sixth sense” for something—Pike really did. With a bit of shark in her, a bit of eel, and some delicate wiring running parallel to her veins, she breathed in and sucked the invisible sparks from the air.

It was almost too much. It always was. From the outside, she knew, her eyes shone like lamps. She had the sudden awareness that they were all wet, with wine if not water, and that was probably bad—

But she needed to discharge, and a target was right here, heart still under her hands. Breathe, and breathe, break his ribs and pump his chest, and _release—_

Young Evan bucked as the electricity rushed out of her palms.

~ { Ω } ~

Percy stumbled downstairs at around noon, which was normal, and found four people in his kitchen, which was not.

Keyleth was flipping pancakes and laughing, warm in the light of the sunlamp he’d installed down here to make her more comfortable. Pike was standing on a stool by the counter and stirring something; at a glance, it looked chemical rather than culinary. He’d be a hypocrite to begrudge her the contaminated mixing bowl.

Vax’ildan leaned on the table, dressed like he was more likely to rob the place than visit, and Vex’ahlia sat next to him. Vax stopped mid-sentence when Percy walked in. Both twins glared at him, poised in the moment before fight or flight.

He returned their stare, taking support from the doorway. “You came back.”

“Trinket’s sick,” said Vex, voice tight. “We think something’s really wrong with his insides. This place was close.”

There was something large and furry overflowing her lap, that she was feeding with a squeeze bottle. It looked like a half-grown bear cub. Mostly. There were horns where there shouldn’t be, and Percy was fairly sure bears weren’t supposed to have that many teeth. And its breaths wheezed laboriously, though that likely wasn’t a deliberate feature of the construct.

Percy circled around, doing his best to get a closer look without coming within Vax’s punching radius.

“I can help. I’ve been working on some designs for mechanized limbs.” This could actually be a real opportunity. “They aren’t ready yet, but I’m sure they could be modified for internal organs–”

Vex clutched her not-bear to her chest, to his protesting moan. “Fuck off! He’s not an experiment!”

Percy stepped back from the heat of her rage, raising his hands in truce. “Or we can start slowly,” he said carefully.

“He’s having some honey and water, right now,” Pike chimed in at his back. “I’m mixing something with more electrolytes right now, but we’re really waiting for the genanalyzer to finish with the fur sample I gave it.”

“That sounds good. It—he may need a Röntgen scan, too.” Percy hesitated. “You’ll stay?”

Keyleth looked on hopefully, her pancakes starting to burn. The twins exchanged glances. Vax gave the slightest nod.

“Until Trinket’s better,” said Vex. “If you can actually help.”

~ { Ω } ~

Every part of Grog’s body hurt. But an angel was smiling down at him, outlined by light and everything. so it was probably going to be okay. Or he was dead. He forgot which way the stories went.

“Hey,” he managed. “’m I dead?”

“Not anymore!” she said brightly. Her hands were small and tingly on his chest.

“Cool.” He passed out again.

Things were kind of blurry for a while, fading in and out of reality. But when he woke up again, the angel was still there. They were indoors, now, and she was doing something to some tubes, which were stuck into his body. Something about that made Grog uneasy, but he didn’t hurt so much anymore, so it was probably okay.

“Hey,” he said again. His jaw was still kind of achey. “’m still not dead, right?”

“Nope!” she said. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

“Sure?”

He was, he realized. lying on a table in a laboratory, or what he’d always thought a lab would look like when the older guys told stories at camp. There were papers and and knives and vials of colored stuff everywhere. Pretty cool.

He wasn’t wild about being strapped down, though. The straps were metal, so it took him a couple yanks to dislodge them and sit up. Kinda hurt, though. He was still sore all over. He wondered why.

“What’d’ya want to know?”

The angel skipped back as he got up. There was a buzzing behind Grog’s head. He twisted around to see a skinny guy in a labcoat, with hair so white it matched, and a real death ray in one hand. It was kind of little, but it was glowing at the tip, and pointed at Grog’s head. Grog wasn’t _quite_ as stupid as most of the Herd said he was. He knew Danger when he saw it.

He brought his fists up. “You got a problem?”

“I am less than enthused about possibly mad, most certainly rogue constructs in my laboratory,” said the man. His death ray hummed like a bunch of angry bees.

“Percy, please,” said the angel. She sounded more exasperated than scared. “I told you—he fought the others. That’s why he was dead.”

She turned back to Grog. “Hey, my name’s Pike! What’s yours?”

“Grog.” He lowered his fists a little, though he kept a wary eye on the guy with the death ray. “Grog Strongjaw.”

“That’s a pretty tough name,” she said admiringly. “Do you remember how you got here, Grog?”

He did, kinda. With the reminder that she’d told the spark (had to be a spark.) It was kind of blurry, but maybe that was because he’d been punched in the head a lot.

“I, uh, said we shouldn’t beat up that old guy, so Kevdak beat the shit outta me instead.” Grog rubbed his scarred arms as the memories became clearer. Of the punching, at least. “Shit, was the old guy okay? I think I passed out.”

“He’s fine!” The angel—Pike—smiled again, which lit her up like the sun. “I got him stabilized and left him in Westruun. You, I had to bring home, because you were more complicated to fix up.”

“’Cuz I was dead.”

“Yeah.”

“An’ we’re not in Westruun anymore?”

“Nope. This is Whitestone. We’re just over the mountains. I had to get some help to get you here, lemme tell you! You’re pretty big.”

Grog preened, and relaxed some muscles he didn’t realize he was holding tight. The idea of having a whole bunch of mountains between him and Kevdak and the Herd was…nice. Real nice.

Something else was weird, though. He frowned, chasing the thought. “Why’d you do that?”

“Hm?” Pike looked confused.

“Bring me home,” Grog clarified. “An’ back to life an’ stuff.” He frowned even deeper. “Why were you even there, if this is where you live? It’s…” He looked around again. Sturdy stone walls, fancy decorations around the windows. He waved his hand at them. “This place looks pretty nice. Why’d you go out into the Wastelands?”

“An excellent question,” Percy muttered.

“Because there are people out there who need help,” Pike said firmly. “You did a really good thing, so I thought you deserved a second chance.”

Grog looked her up and down. Mostly down. She was ready to fight, she had that look in her eye, but even sore all over, he could definitely take her. He could probably even take the spark, if he smacked the death ray out of his hand. Sparks were weak like that. All brains and no punching.

She needed some help, was his next thought. Someone to carry heavy bodies, and fight monsters and clanks and…other people who were out there.

He started to scratch his chin contemplatively, and stopped mid-thought.

“What the–”

His chin was fuzzy. Bristly, like a fresh-caught boar. When he went cross-eyed to see what his hand was doing, there was something dark against his grey skin, and not just dirt. Grog gasped.

“Holy shit, do I have a beard now?”

~ { Ω } ~

Once upon a time, Whitestone Castle hosted balls.

They were magnificent. Whitestone may have been a small city in far northern Germania, and the de Rolos not the highest of the Fifty Families, but Luzhakna and Yurkofsky and even Sturmvoraus, all came to the annual Winter’s Crest Ball. Even a Heterodyne, once—an unmitigated social disaster, of course, but what a _event_. Percy’s great-great-great-grandmother had the most picturesque scorch marks framed.

The Great Hall held 20 crystal chandeliers, always lit with candles—no sparkish electricity for the de Rolos of Whitestone. The warm light bounced between the crystals and the white stone walls until it was magnified tenfold. Beneath would play the band, only the finest musicians paid to travel to this oasis of light and joy in the frozen north. And the dancers, oh, the dancers…sharp men in sharper suits and ladies spinning in skirts of every shape and color, a seeming chaos that resolved into a perfect pattern of swoops and swirls. Percy never much liked the balls as a child—too many people, with too many agendas and fake smiles that he was supposed to understand and parry. But even he could watch the dancers for hours. For an evening or two a year, he would gladly suffer the crowds for the art of the dance.

Once upon a time.

Everyone was home at once, for once. So Keyleth was outside with the twins, dashing around in the snow with Trinket. Vax must have done something obnoxious because both girls were shouting, Keyleth laughing as she scolded. Their voices drifted through the old arrow-slit window above Percy’s sketching table, falling on him along with the cool cloud-light. Pike and Grog were in town, helping with some case of pneumonia or maybe building a snowman. They would troop back for hot chocolate soon enough.

As for music…

“Okay, how about this one.” A lute strummed all too close to his ear, and a lilting voice began,

“There once was a madboy in Whitestone  
Who dreamed he was cleaning an old bone  
But then it got wet  
And he woke in a fret  
To find the bone that he stroked was—”

Percy covered his ears and snapped, “I don’t know why I created you.”

He regretted the words almost as soon as he said them. Scanlan, sitting on the bookshelf beside him, just laughed.

“That’s what your mother said!”

~ { Ω } ~

Keyleth found him in his Idle workshop, tinkering with a new death ray design. Nothing revolutionary, just (Percy hoped) a bit of a range increase, and a slightly smaller chance of overheating to the point of explosion. He was barely even in a fugue.

“Pass the 3.4cm wrench, would you?” He’d been vaguely wanting it for the last few minutes, the need not yet urgent enough to get it himself.

Keyleth grabbed the wrench off the wall and dropped it into his waiting hand, and settled onto the table just out of range of his elbows. It wasn’t the best laboratory protocol, but Percy trusted her to have noticed that he wasn’t working with live explosives.

“Percy?”

“Hm?” This damn thermo-coupling just wouldn’t—fit—

“Remember how I said we should talk, yesterday?”

“Mm-hm.” He had the vague recollection that he’d been refining ultra-high-heat-resistant iron for the Chimneysweeps.

“And I said the same thing two days ago?”

“Uh-huh.” He’d been working on a new dishwasher, which was _very_ important because the alternative had been doing his meager amount of monthly paperwork the City Council sent up, and he could only rationalize putting that off for something _truly_ _important_.

“I mean, I probably should have brought it up earlier.” Keyleth twisted a strand of hair around her fingers, tucked it behind her ear, then behind her branch. “Only I wasn’t sure, and then I wasn’t sure how to say anything, and…”

Percy thought maybe he should look at her with more than the corner of his eye. She sounded more nervous than baseline—and baseline from two years ago, at that, fresh out of the tank. (He was constantly proud of how much she’d improved.)

He held the laser’s wires apart to frown up at her with concern. “Keyleth, what’s wrong?”

“I’m going away.” She said it almost as one word, arms coming up to cross defensively over her chest. “Leaving Whitestone. Vex and Vax are going tomorrow, and Pike and Grog and Scanlan, and…me.”

Percy held his invention still.

Keyleth’s voice turned wistful, and she stared at a point somewhere above his head. “We’re going to go to the ocean, Percy, and ride on a ship—there’s supposed to be a city that’s half underwater! Where everyone swims, with a real kelp forest! And mountains even bigger than the Alabaster Sierras, all spires and cliffs, and the trees are all bent and people with wings live there. And a forest that lives on a volcano, where all the trees are fire-resistant. Vax said there might even be a dragon! And who knows what else!”

She stared down at him, pleading. “So you see why I have to go, right? It’s—it’s basically for science. Leaning, like.”

A bird called outside.

“Percy?” Keyleth bit her lip. “Percy, say something?”

Eighteen years of aristocratic education had not left him unable to speak in any circumstance.

“Of—of course,” Percy said.

Keyleth chewed on her lip. But her arms remained crossed. Percy mustered up a smile.

“Of course you should go!” He shoved his half-made death ray away. “Keyleth, that sounds wonderful. You must write me constantly, and record all your observations. And adventures.”

“You could come?” she offered. “Get out of the castle, take notes yourself?”

“I– no.” Percy shook his head. “No, I can’t leave Whitestone. Not now. It’s be raiding season in a few months, and I need to completely redo the border cannons before then, and the Chimney needs maintenance, and who would look after—no.” His hands shook, just a quiver. He made sure he was still smiling. “But you! You have a wonderful time!”

“Really?”

“Of course. I…” He grabbed a few parts at random, standing. “I have to go…get something in my rooms. I’ll see you for dinner, and wish you off in the morning. Of course. _Wonderful!_ ”

His refuge wasn’t any more dignified than his retreat. Percy paced in his too-small bedroom until he was nearly dizzy. There would be more room in the master bedroom, but he’d never been able to touch his parents’ old space. This wasn’t his childhood bedroom, either, just a guest bedroom near the main laboratory.

Keyleth was the one who had persuaded him to move here, from his old room across the castle. The idea had been that if his bed was closer, he was more likely to actually use it. It even worked, sometimes.

Of course she should leave. It wasn’t as though she was actually planted here, like the Sun Tree itself. She was a person, just like the others, and _they_ came and went...if they _all_ wanted to leave, that was…

Just fine. _Reasonable_ , even. _Percy_ didn’t want to stay here, in this empty castle with no one but himself and (the superstition of) ghosts. Between them, he was probably the worse company. Who wanted to spend time with a madman? Obsessive, cowardly, destructive to everyone and everything around them…

He couldn’t walk away from his own self, and he wouldn’t—he _couldn’t_ leave the castle. Leave Whitestone. (How dare she? How _could_ she? Wasn’t Keyleth—weren’t _all_ of them made of this city as much as he was?) No: it was a matter of responsibility. Percy couldn’t abandon _his_ city. not again. If anyone else wanted to go, it was their right; he would never—

(It would be so easy, was the thing. “I just want to give you a quick check-up before you go,” he could say, and get them in the lab one by one and it could just take a _quick_ couple shots for no one to ever leave him. A tweak to their hormones, a remotely triggerable incendiary device or two, and they’d never be able to pass the borders of Whitestone. They’d never even _want_ to leave. Never _remember_ wanting to leave. It would be so _simple—_ )

Percy had made a real attempt to keep his workplace and resting place separate, sometimes with whitewash, so the walls of his bedroom were mostly free of sketches and equations. He seized a pen and flung himself at the empty canvas. A view of Whitestone Valley comprised entirely of miniature gears, an _inspired_ illustration of the interconnected nature of…whatever. That was the thing. That was what this castle needed.

At some point somebody knocked on his door and called his name. When he opened it five minutes later, they had left a tray with dinner, and a bottle of Courage from the cellar. He appreciated that. Enough rich liquor and even Percy could fall asleep.

-

When he woke, he was being dragged down the hallway, staring at his eldest brother’s body. Wrists bound, ankles chained, on _her_ slab—she kept shaking it, as she started asking questions. It made her knife unsteady. She smiled as he bled. The chains chafed at his skin, dragged as he arched to get away (didn’t work.) Wind whipped against his skin, no one but ghosts to hear him—

Percy woke again, swallowing a scream. _No._ No, this time, he really was awake. The wind against his skin was real, and the rope burning his wrists and legs. He wasn’t…back there. Back then.

He wasn’t home, either. Cold air bit at his face, his bound limbs. He was tied down to something large, coarse, and moving. _Breathing_. He cracked his eyes open, fighting to keep his breath steady, and there was bright sky, and the pale stone of the Sierras curving up on one side. From the tilt of his body, they were just past the peaks.

“Good morning.” Vex’ahlia’s voice, warm, not sounding very much like a kidnapper. Her hand patted his shoulder, and she shouted at some other persons, “Guys! He’s awake!”

Percy opened his eyes fully—no use hiding if she knew.

But it _was_ Vex, blue hair feathers and all. Craning his neck, he could see the rest of the merry band—Vax and Keyleth ahead, both in traveling gear, slowing at Vex’s shout. Keyleth’s branches were putting out blossoms. Grog looming tall enough to be seen upside-down, with Pike on one shoulder and Scanlan on the other. Percy was, of course, tied to Trinket, and the view confirmed that they had just crested the Alabaster Sierras. Europa spread out ahead.

“Gemme ‘ff,” Percy slurred.

“What’s that?” asked Vex.

Spark burned through the leftover haze of Courage and whatever they must have spiked it with.

“ **_Untie me, now_ **.”

If the madness hadn’t been rising atop a tide of panic, he might have enjoyed spiteful satisfaction from watching them all stiffen at the ringing command. Some flinching, some bracing themselves in opposition, each according to their natures.

Instead, he held perfectly still as Vax sprang back and sliced the ropes with a knife, and rolled off Trinket’s back as soon as he was able. The ground was hard, but stable.

Someone—Keyleth—offered him a hand up. Percy brushed her off. He did his best to sweep the dirt from his clothes—the same ones he had fallen asleep in, the same ones he had been wearing yesterday. Yesterday? Judging by the sun in the sky, t was late-morning, now.

it was easier to swallow the madness, now that he wasn’t tied down. Still, he glared at the constructs around him. “ _What_ is this all about?”

They glanced at each other, none wanting to speak. Finally, with a roll of her eyes, Vex stepped forward.

“This is a kidnapping,” she stated plainly, “for your own good.”

Percy shifted to direct his glare particularly at her, but then Keyleth chimed in.

“We’re worried about you, Percy. You haven’t left that castle in three years.”

“What—yes I have. I leave all the time, to check—”

Now it was Pike’s turn to jump on him. “Maintenance on the border defenses doesn’t count, Percy. You never do anything fun. Anything that’s not about Whitestone, or science.”

She held up a hand before he could interrupt her. “Yes, science is fun. But you don’t even act like it’s fun. You’re not enjoying yourself.”

“There’s some really cool stuff out there,” Grog added. “Like…” He furrowed his brow, thinking hard. “Shiny rocks.”

He pointed to down the mountain, to where open fields, dark forests, and a few winding rivers filled the Wastelands. Here and there sat the hint of a hardy town, and a flicker in the distance suggested greater cities. Mechanicsburg, Paris….For a moment, Percy caught a glimpse of something in the sky, before it flew too far. Too large for a bird, too fast for a cloud—an airship, most likely one of the Baron’s. (Too dangerous, alas, too steal.)

“If you truly don’t want to,” Scanlan said softly, “you can go back. But we’d sincerely like to have you, Percy.”

Percy tore his gaze from the horizon to look around at his family instead. Yes, his family—for a moment, that was all he saw. Grog with Julius’s jaw, beard and all, carefully reconstructed from what little could be salvaged. Scanlan the total reanimation of some great-great-uncle—he’d thought he’d finally found Cassandra’s skeleton, so small, but it was the wrong unmarked grave. Pike and Keyleth were both composites, with modification, but there were his sister’s eyes, his aunt’s pert nose, the shared mulish clench of _several_ ancestors’ jaws. Even the twins, borrowed though their original corpse had been, had his mother’s hair. It had just been…too difficult to resist.

The realization hit Percy like a brick. Only eighteen years of deportment lessons kept him from smacking himself in the forehead. Of course! it was the most basic mistake. Embarrassing, almost. Everyone knew of orphan sparks building parental constructs in breakthrough, or someone scared building, without thinking about it, a violent protector. _Classic_.

He himself, Percy reasoned, coming home to an empty castle—that is, having _very thoroughly_ _rendered it_ empty—must have unconsciously implanted in all his sentient creations a subconscious imperative to never leave him alone. What a pathetic, sabotaging fool.

He decided to test the extent of their rationalizations. He turned to Vax.

“You can’t possibly agree with that. You think I’m a complete prick.”

Vax shrugged. “Sure, most of the time. But you could be worse.”

Percy took a cloth from his breast pocket and cleaned his glasses. For the moment without them, the view of Europa turned into a watercolor, a fairy land in a dream.

It would not be fair to deprive them of that. If he insisted on returning to Whitestone, one of them would have to join him, or they would all no doubt suffer undue psychological distress.

“So long as we return well before raiding season…” Percy spoke slowly as he replaced his glasses. The faces of his…semi-reconstituted family fell back into clarity. “I suppose that, as science progresses, so must I.”

Keyleth cheered, and Pike and Grog high-fived.

“Hell yeah!” said the big construct. “Listen, there’s this one, like, really big rock, that Vex says isn’t a dragon egg but I think—”

“It’s really not a dragon egg,” said Vex. She sounded like she was repeating herself. “For that we’d have to go even further north, to the Ice Lords. And we are _not_ stealing from another palace.”

“I mean, we could,” said Vax. “I just need better lockpicks this time, and maybe we can leave Pickle on lookout—”

“I can build an automatic lock-picker,” Percy suggested, already knowing it was a bad idea. But mind, as always, racing ahead…

“I can be quiet!” Pike insisted. “I’ve been practicing. Anyway, Scanlan said he could seduce one of the guards this time.”

“I absolutely can,” said Scanlan. “If someone didn’t insist on stabbing them first…”

And so, bickering and planning together, they walked down the mountain.

(A very common story indeed.)

**Author's Note:**

> Will Keyleth get to see the sea before Vax is arrested again? Will Grog find a real dragon egg? Will Percival ever realize that the people in his remade family all genuinely like and care about him as a person? Or will he nearly get shot trying to steal a Wulfenbach airship? Find out next time, in the next thrilling adventure of...VOX MACHINA, DOOR-SLAYERS!


End file.
